Discussion and Policy Recommendations

While research on police body-worn videos (BWVs) continues to explore new avenues, it appears that other professions that may (or may not) benefit from recording their interactions do not receive the same level of academic interest. Presently, considerably less is understood about the perceptions and experiences of non-police occupations (Bruton et al., J Aggr Confl Peace Res 14(2):133–142, 2022; Hardy et al., Mental Health Family Med 13:393–400, 2017; Koen et al., J Crime Justice 46(2):194–210, 2023; Taylor, Recent developments in surveillance: an overview of body-worn cameras in schools. In: The Palgrave international handbook of school discipline, surveillance, and social control, pp 371–388, 2018). As it is now known that BWVs provide additional benefits beyond personal protection and incriminating evidence, including accountability, training, and professionalism, a variety of professions will likely adopt these devices (Skinner et al., Implementation of body-worn cameras: rapid review of current research and practice. Charles Sturt University, 2022). In addition to retail salespeople, customer service representatives, healthcare professionals, firefighters, correction officers, teachers, and flight attendants, there is a growing interest in and implementation of BWVs among public-facing personnel. However, there is a paucity of research on those who interact with the public in a variety of settings. This study aimed to address this deficiency by investigating the impact of BWVs on frontline personnel in mass transit environments, specifically the British rail network. Notably, this population includes not only security guards but also ticket enforcers, customer support agents, and all public-facing employees associated with the major train operating companies (TOCs) in the United Kingdom. It is estimated that in the United Kingdom alone, more than 65,000 people protect, serve, and manage a system with billions of rides per year (nearly 450,000 employees in the United States and more than 800,000 in the EU; see American Public Transportation Association 2019 and the European Commission 2015). In this chapter, we discuss these results in a wider context and discuss how BWVs can potentially assist in combating workplace violence.